The end of energy drinks

If this jovial little report from The New Yorker is to be believed, the time of amped-up Red Bull swilling is done, replaced by things like DRANK, the self-proclaimed "anti-energy drink:"

A few months back, as the modern financial system was revealing itself to be a hyper-stimulated and under-funded wreck, some unfamiliar merchandise turned up in midtown, along with a pitch: “This might be just the thing for jittery Wall Street right now.” The merchandise was liquid—a six-pack of tall purple cans with the word “DRANK” printed beneath a drawing of what looked like a bottle of Robitussin, along with the slogan “Slow Your Roll.” To a hip-hop fan, if not to a banker, the allusion is obvious: purple drank is a kind of instant moonshine, originating in the Houston rap scene, and consisting primarily of cough syrup and 7UP. (Variations abound, some featuring Jolly Ranchers.) It’s a sedative, and therefore well suited to the slow, vaguely psychedelic Southern rap favored by artists like Lil Wayne, whose song “Me and My Drank” includes the lyrics “I’m a sip until I lean hard / Drink got me moving slower than a retard. . . . One more ounce will make me feel so great / Wait, now I can’t feel my face.” 

If you think of Red Bull, with its glorified but dubious ingredient, taurine, as in some ways emblematic of the housing boom, then here, perhaps, was something grounding to take a day trader’s eye off the relentlessly correcting ticker. The canned version, which is billed as an “anti-energy drink” and an “extreme relaxation beverage,” will do nothing for your congestion; its active ingredients are melatonin, rose hips, and valerian root. (The homespun stuff works best with codeine and promethazine.) “Eight ounces really puts you to sleep,” a publicist said. Each can contains sixteen ounces: a Rip Van Winkle special. It tastes like a faintly carbonated grape Kool-Aid, with hints of Dimetapp.

Well, no one ever accused our culture of moderation. Things booming? Fuck you! I want more! Sky falling? To hell with this shit, I'm going to bed.

I wonder what the next big drug will be, now that everything from caffeine to amphetamines seems passe. Cough syrup? Really? Here's betting that some brand spanking new type of disassociative or depressant comes down the pipe in the coming years. 

Oh yeah, and Gothic Lolita's gonna get really popular. No, don't ask me how those two go together. Just trust me on this.

Comments

[m1k3y]

Some people want to amp up 'cause the Future is what we make and there's never enough time.

Others want to drop out and pretend nothing is real.

I much prefer people getting high on cough-syrup to people blowing themselves up in crowded places..

[David Forbes]

Oh I prefer people getting high on just about anything to blowing themselves up in crowded places.

Personally I stopped imbibing caffeine, except for the occasional cup of tea, after college. There is never enough time, but personally I have almost too much energy anyway, and don't enjoy the jangled feeling being amp'd up gives me.

Still, it's an interesting, if small, indicator of reversing trends. I wonder what the next, harder step will be. Algae therapy perhaps?